And in proportion to the obtuseness of their religious sensibilities, must be the boldness of our appeal to their desire of the rewards which come from a religious life. It is true that eloquence has sometimes degenerated into the art of deceiving men by speech, into the taking advantage of their humors and caprices for the purpose of persuading to unreasonable acts. It has in fact sometimes been, as Kant describes it, the art of managing an affair of the intellect, as if it were a subject fit only for a play of the fancy. But when we consider that the original motive to eloquence is a desire to promote the perfection of man, and the nature of it is a symmetrical operation upon the mental and the moral susceptibilities, and the end of it is man's entire, his highest, of course his spiritual improvement, then we discover no possible ground for the charge that it blinds the intellect and misleads the affections. From the fact that its aims and tendencies are so high upward, it seems to be peculiarly fitted for the pulpit, although Kant condemns it as especially uncongenial with attempts to secure justice at court, or to promote religion in the church. Indeed the political condition of many European States is such, as to encourage no other form of public eloquence, than that of the sanctuary; they have no deliberative assemblies and no open judicial courts, like those in the ancient republics, and under several modern governments.

§ 10. Christian character of Pulpit Eloquence.

Every system of truth has some one leading idea. The scheme of doctrine and of duty revealed to us in the New Testament, has for its chief and governing thought, that of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God embraces the earth and the heavens, the present and the future. It embraces the state and the company of those who have received in this life the knowledge, the peculiar spirit and the hopes of the Christian religion, see Matt. 12: 28. 13: 52. Col. 1: 13. 1 Cor. 4: 20. It embraces also the state and company of those who are glorified in the eternal world; see Matt. 5: 3, 10, 12. It is the kingdom of God, because he is its founder and preserver, its beginning and its end. It is the kingdom of heaven, because it has come down to us from heaven, and is perfected there. It is the kingdom of Jesus, because his atonement is the corner-stone on which it is established. The design of the whole Christian dispensation is to educate men for this blessed kingdom. They are to be excited and disciplined and

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prepared for it, by means of instruction in sacred truth. But it is not sufficient that man merely know the doctrines of religion. He must also feel the possibility of his union with God. He instinctively aspires after such a union, for he has a natural longing after a universal harmony; but he sees that there must be some propitiating sacrifice before he can be one with the pure divinity. Christ has not only given man the needed instruction, but has also offered the essential sacrifice. He has offered it not for the purpose of making the Deity propitious, but of enabling men to see that he is so; for the purpose of imparting to them a vivid idea of the pure and incorruptible law, of the blending of justice with love; for the purpose of preparing the way and presenting the motives for transgressors to be at peace with their Maker. Nor has he merely given himself as a sacrifice; he has also exhibited an example by which we are enlightened with regard to our duty, and incited to a self-denying and devoted life. In one sense, his work is not finished. He has established a church, and in the church has appointed ministers, whose office it is to prosecute and perfect the system of benevolent action which he has begun. The duty of ministers is to preach that word, of which the kingdom of God is the central idea, and the atonement of Jesus the middle-point. They must be representatives of their Master in their deeds, as well as in their instructions. They must die to sin, as he died for it. They must sacrifice themselves to the service of God, as he made himself an offering for the divine glory. They must renounce every earthly attachment and abandon every pleasure and pursuit, which interfere with their highest usefulness, as their Master yielded up even his life for the cause of benevolence. They must be not only preachers

but also priests.

Since the Reformation it has often been asserted, that ministers of the New Testament have no priestly character or office. The Catholics have so degraded the ministry by literal views of the Christian priesthood, that Protestants have denied the reality of such a priesthood altogether. Marheinecke, however, contends that the Christian minister may rightly be called a priest, and history proves that by refusing him that appellation, he has been of ten exposed to a loss of spirituality and true dignity. It is indeed true, as Loeffler has remarked, that Christ never expressly denominates himself a priest, but rather compares himself to the victim, which the priest offers in sacrifice; see Matt. 26: 28. Mark 14: 24. Luke 22: 20; see also 1 Cor. 5: 6-8, where he is called

the paschal lamb. But does he not also declare in Matt. 20: 29, John 6: 51, that he offered the sacrifice, and gave himself as a Lúzgor? Is he not represented in Eph. 5: 2, as the performer of the oblation, and is he not styled throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews the true, perfect, eternal high priest? Does not the apostle Paul also denominate himself a priest in Rom. 15: 16, meaning that he was instrumental in converting souls to God and thus presenting them as sacrifices unto him? Does he not testify in 2 Cor. 4: 10, that he constantly exposes himself to death for the sake of the Gospel, and in Gal. 6: 14, that he is crucified to the world? See also Gal. 5: 24. Does he not speak in Phil. 2: 17, of his voluntary sacrifice of his own life in discharging his duty to his brethren, in presenting their faith as an offering to Jehovah, and in performing the duties of the Christian priesthood? It is indeed true, that private Christians are represented in 1 Pet. 2: 5, as invested with the priestly office. Still they are not thus honored, in the same degree with the constituted minister of the word. They give themselves as an offering to their Maker, they strive to present their neighbors likewise as an acceptable sacrifice to heaven, they live to some extent retired from the circles of fashion; but the consistent preacher devotes his whole time to direct efforts for the welfare of others, and consecrates himself in a peculiar manner to a life of self-denial. He walks emphatically as a pilgrim and stranger on the earth, and does not participate, as others do, in the pleasures of society. He may sympathize indeed with the innocent joys of others, but he must not exhibit the same festive spirit which is indulged by the laity. He should not appear morose, nor offensively peculiar, but he must avoid some modes of dress, some expressions of sentiment, some kinds of relaxation which are allowed to private Christians. He must preserve, so far as enlightened reason recommends, a profession. al peculiarity, and should seem to be, as well as really be, absorbed in a higher than earthly mission.

Nor is it simply in the measure of his consecration to God, and in the number of his efforts to make his fellow-men meet offerings to heaven, that he possesses more of a priestly character than belongs to laymen. He is also distinguished from them by his duties in the sanctuary. The office of a prophet or preacher was separated, under the Jewish economy, from the office of a priest or conductor of the services of the temple. But under the Christian dispensation, the duty of leading in the public worship of God is conjoined with that of proclaiming truth. The evangelical

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pastor, whose words are instrumental in making many of his hearers an acceptable sacrifice unto Heaven, is also doubly a priest when he offers up the united prayers of his congregation, when he presents their children at the baptismal altar as an oblation to God, and when he dedicates his whole church to their Saviour in the sacrament of the bread and wine. He is not indeed a priest in the original and more proper sense, that of offering an outward propitiatory sacrifice to an offended Deity; but in the sense of offering his own heart and life, of offering, instrumentally, the souls and the influence of his hearers to God, in the sense of crucifying himself to the world, of sacrificing his earthly interests and pleasures for the divine glory, in the sense of conducting the services of public religious worship, he should habitually regard himself as set apart to the priesthood. Unless he do consider himself as thus anointed, he will be inclined to conform improperly to the usages of the world, and will be in danger of losing his rightful authority over the minds of laymen. The Protestant clergy have often undermined their influence by accommodating themselves to the standard of general society, and refusing not only to assert, but also to feel the true sacredness of their office.

The preceding train of remark suggests the leading idea of pulpit eloquence. It must consist in the preaching of Christian truth, especially in unfolding the influences of Christ's atonement. It is not pulpit eloquence if it be employed on mere philosophy, or ethics, or any theme which is not distinctively connected with evangelical doctrine. It must also unite with the clear statement of principles, the exhibition of a warm and earnest piety. It must explain not so much biblical truth in general, as the distinctive faith of the Christian scheme. It must urge not to the possession of a mere intellectual faith, but to the union of this with self-denying love. This union must not only be taught by the preacher's words; it must also be illustrated in his style of uttering those words. He should exhibit in his tones, gestures and whole mein the particular temper which he recommends. His sermon cannot be disjoined from his life; therefore, all his deeds must be a befitting commentary upon his teachings, and his daily example must add an eloquence to his pulpit addresses. It must be an example not merely of ethical, but also of evangelical virtue, of that benevolence which is inseparable from trust in the RedeemUnless he conjoin a Christian character with distinctively, VOL. II. No. 5.

er.

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Christian discourses, he may be a secular orator, but he has not the true eloquence of the pulpit.

$ 11. Moral and Evangelical Preaching.

Since the prevalence of the Critical Philosophy, it has been fashionable to discourse from the pulpit on moral duties rather than on the Christian faith. That is indeed a useless faith, which is not a motive to the discharge of duty; but on the other hand, that is a transient and superficial virtue, which does not emanate from religious principle. A wise preacher, then, will endeavor so to communicate the truths of the Gospel as to show their influence on the moral life, and so to describe the practical virtues as to illustrate their indebtedness to the Christian faith. Schuderoff speaks of a homiletic realism, the prominent aim of which is to enforce the performance of our duty, but still it insists on religious feeling as an incentive to the virtue enjoined; and also of a homiletic idealism, the chief design of which is to inculcate faith in Christ and love to him, but still it urges the manifestation of these inward exercises in outward moral obedience. The former shows God in the life, the latter develops the life in God. Not every minister is qualified to preach'in either one of these modes, with the same success as in the other; nor is every audience equally prepared for both methods of discourse. One preacher, therefore, is inclined to select as his uniform style, that which is most congenial with his own tastes or the wishes of his people. But he should intermingle the two modes, and thus harmonize the doctrines and the duties of religion. He should not allow the realism nor the idealism to be uniformly predominant; but should sometimes present an abstract truth in the foreground, as casting a radiance upon duty, and at other times should give a prominence to morals, as resulting from correct doctrine. By this interchange of modes, he imparts a freshness and vivacity to the entire course of his ministrations, and avoids the one-sided, incomplete, monotonous character, which so often deprives the pulpit of its interest and usefulness.

12. Conformity to the Scriptural Manner of Teaching.

It has been already remarked, that the minister is called to carry forward the work which our Saviour began on the earth. He is to carry it forward in the true spirit of his Master, and with es